Police prepare to dig for Madeleine McCann's body

RECOVERY: The operation to recover the body of the missing girl is expected to last six days [PA]

They will use radar to scan waste ground near the Portuguese apartment where she vanished in 2007.

UK sniffer dogs are also expected to join an operation set to last up to six days in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

They are said to be focussing on three sites next to the Ocean Club where Madeleine, (left) then three, and her parents Kate, 46, and Gerry, 45, (right) were staying. The start date claim comes less than a week after Scotland Yard chiefs said the probe would soon enter a “substantial” new phase.